Do angels have souls?

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Do angels have souls?

And what scripture/writings would we use to support the answer?
 
No. You would need a conscience and a free will. Angels have only an intelligence and a will. This comes from Sacred Tradition, not Sacred Scripture.
 
Well we have a no and a yes so is there anyone out there with a maybe? 😃
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
Yes, of course. All living beings have souls. Angels are Spiritual beings. They also have free will.
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I’ll throw my lot in with those who say no (although not for the same reason as MOnkey said no).

Philosophically speaking, all living material beings have souls. The soul describes the vital principle of a material body. Angels, being pure spirit and without a material body, do not have souls.

VC
 
St. Thomas Aquinas appears to think that, since a soul is associated with corporeal bodies, angels – being pure spirit – have not souls.

From the Summa:
Whether the angels have bodies naturally united to them?
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Objection 1: It would seem that angels have bodies naturally united to them. For Origen says (Peri Archon i): “It is God’s attribute alone—that is, it belongs to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as a property of nature, that He is understood to exist without any material substance and without any companionship of corporeal addition.” Bernard likewise says (Hom. vi. super Cant.): “Let us assign incorporeity to God alone even as we do immortality, whose nature alone, neither for its own sake nor on account of anything else, needs the help of any corporeal organ. But it is clear that every created spirit needs corporeal substance.” Augustine also says (Gen. ad lit. iii): “The demons are called animals of the atmosphere because their nature is akin to that of aerial bodies.” But the nature of demons and angels is the same. Therefore angels have bodies naturally united to them.
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**Objection 2: **Further, Gregory (Hom. x in Ev.) calls an angel a rational animal. But every animal is composed of body and soul. Therefore angels have bodies naturally united to them.
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**Objection 3: **Further, life is more perfect in the angels than in souls. But the soul not only lives, but gives life to the body. Therefore the angels animate bodies which are naturally united to them.
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On the contrary, Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that “the angels are understood to be incorporeal.”
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**I answer that, **The angels have not bodies naturally united to them. For whatever belongs to any nature as an accident is not found universally in that nature; thus, for instance, to have wings, because it is not of the essence of an animal, does not belong to every animal. Now since to understand is not the act of a body, nor of any corporeal energy, as will be shown later (Q[75], A[2]), it follows that to have a body united to it is not of the nature of an intellectual substance, as such; but it is accidental to some intellectual substance on account of something else. Even so it belongs to the human soul to be united to a body, because it is imperfect and exists potentially in the genus of intellectual substances, not having the fulness of knowledge in its own nature, but acquiring it from sensible things through the bodily senses, as will be explained later on (Q[84], A[6]; Q[89], A[1]). Now whenever we find something imperfect in any genus we must presuppose something perfect in that genus. Therefore in the intellectual nature there are some perfectly intellectual substances, which do not need to acquire knowledge from sensible things. Consequently not all intellectual substances are united to bodies; but some are quite separated from bodies, and these we call angels.
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**Reply to Objection 1: **As was said above (Q[50], A[1]) it was the opinion of some that every being is a body; and consequently some seem to have thought that there were no incorporeal substances existing except as united to bodies; so much so that some even held that God was the soul of the world, as Augustine tells us (De Civ. Dei vii). As this is contrary to Catholic Faith, which asserts that God is exalted above all things, according to Ps. 8:2: “Thy magnificence is exalted beyond the heavens”; Origen, while refusing to say such a thing of God, followed the above opinion of others regarding the other substances; being deceived here as he was also in many other points, by following the opinions of the ancient philosophers. Bernard’s expression can be explained, that the created spirit needs some bodily instrument, which is not naturally united to it, but assumed for some purpose, as will be explained (A[2]). Augustine speaks, not as asserting the fact, but merely using the opinion of the Platonists, who maintained that there are some aerial animals, which they termed demons.
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Reply to Objection 2: Gregory calls the angel a rational animal metaphorically, on account of the likeness to the rational nature.
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Reply to Objection 3: To give life effectively is a perfection simply speaking; hence it belongs to God, as is said (1 Kings 2:6): “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive.” But to give life formally belongs to a substance which is part of some nature, and which has not within itself the full nature of the species. Hence an intellectual substance which is not united to a body is more perfect than one which is united to a body.
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Am I reading this right?
 
Fidelis,
Fidelis said:
St. Thomas Aquinas appears to think that, since a soul is associated with corporeal bodies, angels – being pure spirit – have not souls.
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I think you’ve come to the right conclusion (see my post #5 above) but that conclusion isn’t exactly drawn from the article of Aquinas you mention. The article you mention is more about why Angels don’t need to have bodies.

I’d look, rather, to I, 75, 5 “for it belongs to the notion of a soul to be the form of a body.”

What do you think?
VC
 
Verbum_Caro said:
Fidelis,

I think you’ve come to the right conclusion (see my post #5 above) but that conclusion isn’t exactly drawn from the article of Aquinas you mention. The article you mention is more about why Angels don’t need to have bodies.

I’d look, rather, to I, 75, 5 “for it belongs to the notion of a soul to be the form of a body.”

What do you think?
VC
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So do we conclude that a soul cannot exist without a corporal body? I don’t. God created the Angels as living Spiritual beings, they of course do not have human souls, but could they not have spiritual souls or celestial souls. This is my opinion, I’m not saying that the Church teaches this.
.
 
Michael96 said:
Do angels have souls?

And what scripture/writings would we use to support the answer?
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No. Angels are spirits - the soul is also spirit. The difference is, that angels are complete as they are, without being united to bodies: unlike souls. Soul & body together make up:​

  • plants
  • animals
  • human animals.
  • Not all souls are endowed with intelligence
    but
  • all souls are principles of life.
    See the Summa Theologiae, Questions 50 to 64. For the metaphysical analysis of angels, theology has to go outside the Bible.
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
So do we conclude that a soul cannot exist without a corporal body? I don’t. God created the Angels as living Spiritual beings, they of course do not have human souls, but could they not have spiritual souls or celestial souls. This is my opinion, I’m not saying that the Church teaches this.
.
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Br. Rich,

There might be some difficulty. Angels, as spiritual beings, are simple. To posit an Angel with a soul as a component part could be problematic.

VC
 
Verbum_Caro said:
Br. Rich,

There might be some difficulty. Angels, as spiritual beings, are simple. To posit an Angel with a soul as a component part could be problematic.

VC
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I can’t find anything stating that Angels do not have souls (of any kind), so I suppose that the Church has not settled this question and it is open to discussion.
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
I can’t find anything stating that Angels do not have souls (of any kind), so I suppose that the Church has not settled this question and it is open to discussion.
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Hi Br. Rich,

I think you are right that the Church hasn’t stated that Angels don’t have souls. I’m not sure, though, I would characterize it as an open discussion. To my knowledge it is never discussed. I don’t think the notion that angels having souls is entertained by theologians.

I think this is because the traditional and philosophic definition of what a soul is and what and angel is simply precludes angels form having souls, as those words are normally understood.

Another problem with angels having souls, in addition to the one I mentioned above about angels being simple, would be that if an angel has a soul then an angel could die.

It seems that you want angels to have souls, though. Any reason why?

VC
 
M0nkey said:
No. You would need a conscience and a free will. Angels have only an intelligence and a will. This comes from Sacred Tradition, not Sacred Scripture.
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Well, I’ll take back what I said about free will and a conscience. It seems the human soul was specifically designed by God for Himself alone, so my Monkesian surmise would indicate that no other creature would have a soul, or a soul that is at the same level as the human one.
 
I suppose everything hinges on what is meant by a “soul.” If it is a certain distinction that makes one Angel different from another in various ways, then Angels can be thought of as having souls. But if a soul is defined as being what human beings have, then I would say no Angels do not have that kind of soul.

Our souls were created in the image and likeness of God. We really have no revelation about how the Angelic Spirits were created, other than they were, and that they are much more sublime (i.e. even more proximate to God’s image and likeness) than mankind. So that would indicate to me that Angels do not have souls, like us, but NOT that they are “soulless.” 🙂
 
Verbum_Caro said:
Hi Br. Rich,

I think you are right that the Church hasn’t stated that Angels don’t have souls. I’m not sure, though, I would characterize it as an open discussion. To my knowledge it is never discussed. I don’t think the notion that angels having souls is entertained by theologians.

I think this is because the traditional and philosophic definition of what a soul is and what and angel is simply precludes angels form having souls, as those words are normally understood.

Another problem with angels having souls, in addition to the one I mentioned above about angels being simple, would be that if an angel has a soul then an angel could die.

It seems that you want angels to have souls, though. Any reason why?

VC
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No, no particular reason. A human soul does not die, only those of animals and plants cease to exist when the physical animal or plant dies. An Angel is a Spiritual being so it can’t physically die. Is it possible to say that demons, the fallen angels, have died a spiritual death? Just interested in the comments. To be honest I hadn’t thought about it until reading this thread.
 
AmbroseSJ said:
I suppose everything hinges on what is meant by a “soul.” If it is a certain distinction that makes one Angel different from another in various ways, then Angels can be thought of as having souls. But if a soul is defined as being what human beings have, then I would say no Angels do not have that kind of soul.

Our souls were created in the image and likeness of God. We really have no revelation about how the Angelic Spirits were created, other than they were, and that they are much more sublime (i.e. even more proximate to God’s image and likeness) than mankind. So that would indicate to me that Angels do not have souls, like us, but NOT that they are “soulless.” 🙂
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I’m not proposing that they have “human” souls, but possibly a “celestial” or angelic soul" just to be clear.

This is something that needs to be discussed with a large Bold Starbucks coffee at hand!
 
I found this. The author states that there is no official Church teaching on this, but you can take it for what it is worth. It sounds good --or at least plausible – to me:
But however we may explain the opinions of certain of the Fathers, there is no doubt that in Holy Scripture the angels are often called spirits without any qualifying word; nor is there anywhere question of the souls of angels. Yet had they a body (whether like ours or of a more subtle, ethereal kind) combined in unity of nature with a spiritual substance, the latter would be the soul or vital principle of the compound, and we should expect to find it spoken of as such. If this is not the case, and if on the contrary the human soul is never described by the word spirit without further qualification, the inference seems obvious that the angels are pure spirits - that is, spirits not naturally capable of union with a body.
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The Council of Lateran, to which we have already referred, has this plain testimony, where it defines that God,
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*“by His almighty power brought both creations out of nothing, that of spirit, and that of bodies; that is to say, that of angels and that of the world, and then that of man, as akin to both, being composed of spirit and of body.” *
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Here the antithesis between body and spirit excludes the idea of the angels having like man a composite nature. He is made up of body and soul, but they are pure spirits. No wonder that with so clear a pronouncement to guide them, Catholic theologians are unanimous in maintaining the spirituality of the angels.
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theholyangels.wordpress.com/views-of-some-fathers/
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